Folks in the small south Mississippi town of Crosby are tired. Hot. Sweaty. Hungry.

Nearly a week after a flash flood poured 4 feet of water across the southwest side of town, cleanup progresses slowly.

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Record floods swept across south Louisiana last Friday, displacing tens of thousands of people. The scale of destruction in southwest Mississippi was much smaller, but is no less devastating to the victims. About 90 homes in Mississippi were affected, most of them in Crosby.

"Everything - all the floors and doors mildewed, coming off the bottom, mold ..." said Cassandra Anderson, trying to put into words the damage to her house as she sat outside on a steamy Wednesday afternoon.

Several men gathered to help clean out the house, and furniture was piled on a flatbed trailer.

"All the appliances got water. It came all the way up to that window," Anderson said, gesturing to a sill 4 feet off the ground.

Early Friday morning, the combined waters of Foster and Crooked creeks swept through the sprawling, low-lying neighborhood. It stayed until around 1:30 p.m.

Military trucks and school buses took people to safety as cars floated past. Even nearby Highway 33 went under water.

"We got on a little mound like turtles and sat back till the water went back down," said Jerry Archie, laughing at the image. "We were like a turtle on a log."

Archie can laugh now, but at the time he was emotionally distraught, his friends said. And so were many others.

"One man was on a dresser hollering for help," said Jamal Rogers. "They had to come get him out on a fourwheeler."

A flood happened in 2014 after 8 inches of rain, but this time the town got 10 inches, Archie said. He said Foster Creek runs into the Homochitto River a few miles to the north, and when the Homochitto is in flood, Foster backs up.

Anderson said she doesn't have flood insurance, and so far no Federal Emergency Management Agency funds are available.

Just down the street stands Brenda Ramsey's house. It has been completely gutted - just like it was in April 2014. The house is close to a creek, which tends to overflow due to its many bends and logjams, said her nephew, Dexter Smith.

A block over, Mayor William Hall stepped onto the front porch of his home, which also flooded even though it's up on blocks. He talked on his cellphone, and the second the conversation was over, it buzzed again.

He handed it to his wife and sat wearily on his front steps to collect his thoughts.

"We are losing temporarily 24 residents that live in the government subsidized apartments there," he said. "They are going to have to find other housing. The apartments are also going to have to be renovated. The tenants have to be out by Friday."

That's when contractors will come in and, hopefully, work fast to get the apartments livable again. Hall said the owner, Southern Management, is moving displaced residents - many of them elderly - to other apartment complexes in the meantime.

Many other residents are at a Red Cross shelter in Natchez.

Hall said Gov. Phil Bryant came to town Saturday, and other officials have been quick to respond as well.

The biggest need now is cleaning supplies - bleach, mops, sponges, yard rakes - as well as easily prepared food since many people have no way to cook. Town Hall on Highway 33 is a collection point.

"We're going to try to rebuild and try to get back to our lives," Hall said.

The town board just awarded a contract to clear debris from the creek, using Natural Resource Conservation Service grant funds awarded after the 2014 flood.

"Hopefully, that's going to help us with some of our flooding," Hall said.

The town is also applying for a drainage improvement grant from the Mississippi Development Authority.

"We are in between these two creeks, Foster and Crooked Creek, and when they overflow, it comes through here," he explained. "The only good spot is it goes through fast. As high as it was, it kept on rolling."

As the sun sank low Wednesday, a white Red Cross truck rolled slowly through town. In the parking lot of the Crosby Shelters apartment complex, a Red Cross food wagon prepared to serve chicken dinners to a long line of residents, one of whom gave a vigorous thumbs up in gratitude.